I had this audiobook preordered, and yet it still took me an embarrassingly long time to actually get to it…. which is entirely my bad for letting so much stuff fall on my lap right when it came out, lol.
Ooooh, Çeda and Emre I missed youuuuuu!
Since the Night of Endless Swords, a bloody battle the Kings of Sharakhai narrowly won, the kings have been hounding the rebels known as the Moonless Host. Many have been forced to flee the city, including Çeda, who discovers that the King of Sloth is raising his army to challenge the other kings’ rule.
When Çeda finds the remaining members of the Moonless Host, now known as the thirteenth tribe, she sees a tenuous existence. Çeda hatches a plan to return to Sharakhai and free the asirim, the kings’ powerful, immortal slaves. The kings, however, have sent their greatest tactician, the King of Swords, to bring Çeda to justice for her crimes.
But the once-unified front of the kings is crumbling. The surviving kings vie quietly against one another, maneuvering for control over Sharakhai. Çeda hopes to use that to her advantage, but whom to trust? Any of them might betray her.
As Çeda works to lift the shackles from the asirim and save the thirteenth tribe, the kings of Sharakhai, the scheming queen of Qaimir, the ruthless blood mage, Hamzakiir, and King of Swords all prepare for a grand clash that may decide the fate of all.
As this is the third in a series, I’m going to do my level best to not spoil any of the story so far for anyone who hasn’t read them. I mean… you should read them though, if you haven’t. 😀
Once again, just like the previous installments in this series, this one caught my attention and engrossed me absolutely immediately. We picked up where With Blood Upon the Sand left us, and events move right along. There’s even a connection in this book to the characters from a novella in the series that I read between this one and the novel previous to it. Fun times!
We follow a few more points of view in this one than we have previously. In the beginning of the series, it seemed like just Ramahd, Çeda, and Emre, but now we’ve got a few other characters that have made themselves more prominent as the series has progressed.
I absolutely loved this one. Possibly more than the two previous installments of the series. Things are slowly coming together more and more here, and I’m excited to see where it goes. Characters who were good are… maybe not as good as I thought. Other characters that I thought were bad are… not so bad after all. All kinds of shenanigans happen between everyone as the story ramps up to where its going. The last 4 or so hours of this audiobook were unputdownable, and, thankfully I ended up having plenty of things I could do to occupy my hands for 4 hours. Awesome ending was awesome.
Sarah Coomes once again totally nails the narration here. I ended up just putting my headphones on and drifting along the desert with her at the helm. Much work got done, many things were made, chores were chored, and everyone rejoiced.
This series is slated to be 6 books long, and so I’ll have to wait a bit for the ending, but if the rest of these books are anything like the first three were, it’ll be worth it. I’m definitely going to be saving my audible credits well in advance, because these are among the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to. Absolutely 5/5 stars!
superstardrifter 
I still need to listen to this series. Great review!
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